Word: young
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Wanted: clean-living young men for a long career. Women need not apply. Responsibilities: spiritual guidance, visiting the sick, public relations, marriages (own marriage not permitted). Hours: on call 24/7. Salary: basic stipend only...
Father Patrick Rushe, coordinator of vocations for the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, hasn't placed classified ads yet, but he's done just about everything else to attract young men to the priesthood. So far, though, the call to service seems to be falling on deaf ears. (See pictures of Pope Benedict...
Last month, the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, made a grim prediction: if more young priests aren't found quickly, Ireland's parishes may not have enough clergy to survive. Martin's own diocese is a case in point - it has 46 priests aged 80 or over, but only two under 35. It's a similar story all over the island. According to a 2007 study, about half of all priests in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland are aged between...
...especially in rural areas. As recently as 1990, more than 80% of Irish people said they attended Mass at least once a week. But the country's relationship with the church began to change dramatically in the mid-1990s. When Ireland's economy took off, disaffection replaced devotion among young people. The priest sex-abuse scandals didn't help. Criticism over the handling of the case of Father Brendan Smyth - a priest who sexually abused children for more than 40 years - even led to the collapse of the Irish government in 1994, when Prime Minister Albert Reynolds delayed extraditing Smyth...
While the Disney film wove comedy into a Disney-esque plot about a young girl breaking out of the confines of tradition to pursue her own destiny, the new Mulan focuses on patriotism, filial piety, romance and the difficulties of war. The formula is part of an evolving mainland genre that has seen filmmakers incorporating more nuanced, entertaining storytelling into patriotic plots. "China is anxious to be part of the global community. There's a lot of concern over soft power right now," says Poshek Fu, professor of cinema studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "Movies...